Lucy In The Sky
by Hans the bold
Summary: Eric reflects on the loss of his daughter.
1. One

One of the things that is interesting about fanfiction is taking trends in an original piece of storytelling and extrapolating them to a logical conclusion. In the case of 7th Heaven, this often leads us to some very interesting places. This story, for example, takes the behavior of Annie, Kevin and Lucy in the episode "Major League" and runs with it. Why, you ask, does Lucy constantly act like a child? Here's one explanation.  
  
As always, these characters belong to the WB, Brenda Hampton, and other Hollywood big shots, not to me.  
  
ONE  
  
* * *  
  
We're going to try again. We have to.  
  
You'll understand, I hope, why. It's family, and we're family. It's the mantra of our lives, the one thing that matters above all else. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with the love of family.  
  
And I see that love, all the time, on Annie's face. I do, even despite the lines of rage and pain and anger that have shaped it. I know that there are some who don't agree, who tell me that she's changed, that she isn't the Annie I married. They call themselves experts, they do, and they tell me that people can change, but they're wrong. They're all wrong.  
  
I don't care if they are doctors. God knows my Annie, and he knows that she loves her kids.  
  
God is my strength in all this.  
  
Kevin, too. Thank God for Kevin. He could have left; a weaker man would have. How can he stand it, day after day, not being allowed to see her?  
  
Being kept from his own wife?  
  
#  
  
The doctor -- I won't say psychiatrist -- tells me that this isn't a good idea. But how does he know? All the medicines, all the therapy, the electroshock, trying, trying to get her to respond, my little angel, the little girl I once bounced on my knee, and he's accomplished nothing.  
  
Just that tone he has, criticizing.  
  
"These things don't happen all at once, Reverend. They build up, with time. When did you first notice her starting to change?"  
  
Annie speaks, answering for me. She does that.  
  
"She never changed. She was fine. It was an accident."  
  
The doctor looks at her, at my wife, and I almost protest. No one has the right to look at my Annie that way. I speak.  
  
"It might have been an accident. If she was shaving her legs in the tub, and slipped...."  
  
Now he regards me, says nothing.  
  
It doesn't matter now, anyway.  
  
She's here. My little girl is here.  
  
And she's all right.  
  
Really.  
  
I have to believe that. 


	2. Two

TWO  
  
* * *  
  
I can see her. Only me, and Mary, when she comes out to visit. Mary doesn't do that much anymore, not with her own child to raise. And it's hard, too, when Mary comes, because things have always been hard because of Mary.  
  
She wasn't the loving daughter she should have been. We try to welcome her but these days it's almost like she doesn't want to be welcomed.  
  
But she still does come, sometimes. For her sister, she comes.  
  
Just not today.  
  
I'm used to the smell of the place, like old urine permeating everything. I hate that. But I've brought everything I need, that we need. It'll be all right, because with me she's quiet, docile. They don't even have to drug her anymore; she just sits there, in her chair.  
  
I remember her in her chair, at the dinner table. She was such a beautiful child.  
  
So articulate.  
  
So loving.  
  
So sensitive.  
  
Maybe it was this last part that did it.  
  
No. She was loved. She had her family. She had us, her mother and father, her husband, her siblings. She was loved and cared for.  
  
I step into her room.  
  
#  
  
Odd how I think of it as her room now. This isn't her room; her room is at home, up in the garage apartment, up there with Kevin, with the man she swore to love and honor. But this is her room, until they decide they need to move her, and then whatever room they take her to will be her room. She'll go easily; she always does.  
  
She's sitting by the bed. Her hands are moving, like she's playing some little game. I speak.  
  
"Hello, Lucy."  
  
She looks up and smiles.  
  
"Daddy!"  
  
She's so beautiful as she reaches for me. She wants me to pick her up, like I used to when she was little, but I can't anymore; she's grown now, too heavy. But I accept the hug, let her cling.  
  
"Daddy! Daddy!"  
  
I hold her. Flesh and blood. My flesh, my blood.  
  
Running into the warm water of the bath.  
  
Paramedics. If Kevin hadn't been a police officer, if he hadn't had a radio when he found her....  
  
No. Don't think that. They made it. She made it. She's still here.  
  
Is she?  
  
Shut up.  
  
In time, she lets me go and settles back into her chair. I try not to look at the two long scars on her wrists.  
  
"Daddy daughter day?" she asks.  
  
I smile and nod.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Goody!" 


	3. Three

THREE  
  
* * *  
  
Sitting. With Annie, there in the psychiatrist's office. Listening.  
  
"No warning?" he asks.  
  
"No," Annie says stiffly.  
  
"Reverend?"  
  
"You heard my wife."  
  
He sighs, consults the file in front of him. For some reason this makes me angry. Find the reason, doctor. Find the damn reason my daughter tried to kill herself.  
  
Fix her.  
  
"We've done all the tests we can," he says. "No brain trauma, no evidence of schizophrenia, no physical symptoms of any kind."  
  
"Depression?" offers Annie. "Kevin is a police officer. Maybe she was worried about him getting hurt on the job. He did get hurt that one time --"  
  
The doctor shakes his head.  
  
"Then what is it?" I ask. I'm trying to stay calm. My chest hurts and I know that isn't good.  
  
"Lacking any physical cause, I'd have to rule it a nervous breakdown. Something was too much for her, and she retreated into childhood."  
  
"My daughter cannot have a nervous breakdown!" Annie shouts. "She is loved!"  
  
#  
  
I've done a lot of counseling over the years. I've helped the mentally handicapped, the addicted, the bereaved. But nothing like this. I feel lost. I just want to know why this all happened, but I don't.  
  
She was so happy, Lucy was. She had a good husband, and lived so close to her loving family. We took care of her, the way family is supposed to.  
  
She was our little girl.  
  
#  
  
I'm feeding her now. She likes that, with the small spoon, opening her mouth for each new bite. A grown woman, being fed like an invalid. Soft food, too, mashed into a paste. Like baby food.  
  
She is not an invalid. She isn't.  
  
I look at her as I feed her. What happened, Lucy?  
  
When we finish her lunch I look at her, and she looks back, her eyes bright.  
  
"Would you like to go to a movie?" I ask.  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"No movie."  
  
"All right. What would you like to do?"  
  
"Read to me?"  
  
"Why don't you read to me instead?"  
  
She shakes her head violently. "No! No read!"  
  
I try to speak, find that I cannot. I know you can read, my sweet Lucy. I know you can do what I do. You were so strong once -- what happened? 


	4. Four

FOUR  
  
* * *  
  
Annie is waiting when I get home. There is fire in her eyes.  
  
"Well?"  
  
I sigh. It's been a long day.  
  
"It's like before."  
  
"That's all? That's all you have to say?"  
  
"What do you want me to say?"  
  
"I want you to tell me that I can see her. I have that right. Kevin has that right."  
  
"Yes. But Annie, remember --"  
  
"Don't you tell me to remember! Don't you dare!"  
  
"Annie --"  
  
But she is storming off. She always does; it's nothing new, and I can see why. I want to blame the doctor, pass the buck, but I can't. After what happened last time....  
  
Not fair. Annie's her mother. She does have a right. So does Kevin. When you bond with someone, when they become so much a part of your life that losing them is like losing a limb, you have the right to see them, to know them, don't you? I know Annie is upset, angry. Her children -- our children -- are her world. They follow her and learn from her and without them she knows that she is nothing.  
  
This thought troubles me. Are they not, our children, people too?  
  
Of course they are. But first and foremost, they are our children.  
  
This Annie taught them.  
  
I find Kevin up in the garage apartment.  
  
He looks different now, older maybe. I guess we all do. He watches me as I sit.  
  
"How is she?" he asks.  
  
"No different."  
  
He nods. "I've talked it over with Mrs. Camden," he says. "We agree. We need to see her."  
  
"Kevin --"  
  
"She's my wife, Reverend. I did everything for her. I took care of her."  
  
"I know," I tell him.  
  
"She's got no right to keep me away."  
  
This is true too. I want to say something, to give some sort of sage advice like I always do, but there aren't any words. I don't know why my second daughter is locked up in a home with the IQ of a five year-old. I don't know why she slit her wrists. And I don't know this other thing, either.  
  
I just know it's going to happen.  
  
It always does. 


	5. Five

FIVE  
  
* * *  
  
I am with them. Maybe if I'm with them, it'll be all right.  
  
Maybe.  
  
We walk down the hall, Annie, Kevin, the psychiatrist and I. It seems a long way.  
  
He has tried to dissuade them, but he probably knew it wouldn't work. Annie and Kevin have a way about them, and what they want, they always get. When they tell you something is going to happen, it does. There is no resisting them when they make up their minds.  
  
I stopped trying years ago.  
  
Was it so wrong, the way things were? Annie ruled the house; the matriarch. I knew her temper, her iron will. Lucy learned young, just like all of them did, not to cross her mother, not to risk that tone, that stare. Right or wrong, Annie's word was law.  
  
This is good for kids, right? Even adult ones? They need that stability, that certainty.  
  
God gives that, so why not my wife?  
  
And Kevin -- he had that strength, and that undying love for Lucy. She was always flighty but he learned to control her. She would do as he told because it was best for her. When she threatened to leave that one time, when she had fought with Annie, had dared to fight with Annie, over something stupid like Ruthie's going to a party or something, it had been Kevin who had put his foot down and taken charge.  
  
And Annie who had gone and accepted Lucy's apology.  
  
That's good, isn't it?  
  
It restored the old order in the household. It taught Lucy something about her place in the world, our world.  
  
Did it teach her how to slash her wrists?  
  
No. Don't think that. Don't you dare think that. Annie does what she does out of love.  
  
I watch my wife as we approach the door. Her face is hard, rigid.  
  
And I sense that she will restore order here too.  
  
I try to speak, to say something, but the door opens before I can. 


	6. Six

SIX  
  
* * *  
  
She's there, sitting, just like she always does.  
  
I look at her. Her eyes meet mine.  
  
And they see my betrayal.  
  
Oh, God....  
  
Annie speaks, a smile on her face. A forced smile.  
  
"Hello, Lucy."  
  
I watch.  
  
Lucy stands, stepping back. Kevin steps forward.  
  
"Hi, honey... Lucy...."  
  
And she screams.  
  
Again, again. Biting deep, like glass cutting your eardrums. Screaming and pulling away, even as Kevin's hand closes around her wrist; can he feel the scar?  
  
"Lucy!"  
  
"Get away get away get away!"  
  
He pulls her close.  
  
"Lucy! It's me!"  
  
She's too small to be this strong, but her hand comes up and hard against him, the sound of her palm against him audible even through her screams. And then Annie is there, rushing forward, her own voice joining the cacophony.  
  
"Lucy! Listen to me! Listen to me!"  
  
But she will not. The screaming is louder, her words incoherent. Hysterical, kicking as she fights them, as they two, Annie and Kevin, wrestle with her.  
  
"Calm down! It's me! I am your mother! I said calm down!"  
  
"Lucy!"  
  
No. Orderlies now, rushing in. I suppose they know the drill from last time. And Lucy fights them too, all of them, fighting as they restrain her, as they fasten down the young woman who is my second daughter, who I love more than life itself, binding her limbs to the bed as she cries out.  
  
"Get away get away get away!"  
  
At last they do. Lucy is watching them, her eyes wild in fear and fury, her hair unkempt, fighting against the restraints. There will be a sedative, soon, and she will sleep.  
  
Soon.  
  
But not just yet.  
  
Annie and Kevin move to stand by the bed, looking down at her. I move forward now, opposite them where there is room. They are staring down, down at my daughter. But I do not look at her.  
  
I look at them. Annie speaks.  
  
"Don't you dare think I don't know what you're doing, Lucy. Don't think I can't see through it."  
  
"Annie," I say.  
  
"Shut up, Eric."  
  
It grows silent then. Kevin's face is rigid, as though to stare at Lucy long enough will make her come back to him. And Annie watches her too.  
  
Their eyes speak and Lucy is trying to look away.  
  
You are nothing. You are weak, a child. I bore you. I raised you. And this is how you repay me? By denying me? When I speak you are to listen. When I command, you are to obey. But you are never to question me, child. Never. The hell that is my wrath you cannot bear.  
  
Obey. You are my wife, my lesser. I am wisdom and you are the fool. I am the guide; you the supplicant. Your dignity is only what I permit.  
  
Lucy whimpers now.  
  
"No no no no...." 


	7. Seven

SEVEN  
  
* * *  
  
And I see.  
  
It is her way, the only way. Perhaps she is weak in this, my daughter. Perhaps that she cannot confront them directly is a sign of a failing in her. But I understand, now, as I stand there, as the nurse administers the sedative, as Lucy slips into unconsciousness, I understand why.  
  
It is the only way. Her other efforts, weak and feeble and often misguided, were not enough. They were crippled by love, by that desire in all of us to be loved, to have our mother's kindness and approval, to have a spouse who is a partner, not a master. Each time she could, she also could not.  
  
Could not leave, could not confront, could not stand. And each time in their words, their demands, they drove her back just a little more, made her a little more helpless, a little more the child.  
  
And so when even death was denied her, there was nowhere else to go.  
  
#  
  
Annie and Kevin stay for a long time. This is the only way they can see her and I know how it tears at them. But that doesn't matter, as I sit in the quiet room with them, watching their faces and watching the ragged, destroyed thing that was once my beloved daughter. But it is different now, different from last time or the time before. Because I see what they are, my wife and son-in-law, see that I have been blind all these years.  
  
I wonder what I am to do. To protect my daughter I must destroy my wife. I must get Lucy away, forever, from her own mother and her own husband. Because there is no compromise in them, in either of them. They are happy and are kind only when they are right, when the rest of us submit to them.  
  
As I have always done.  
  
Already I am thinking about what I will say to Lucy the next time I come. I'm sorry? I allowed your mother and husband to destroy you? How can I atone for my sin, for my failings as a father?  
  
Can you ever forgive me, Lucy?  
  
Maybe. I hear Annie's voice as though it is far away.  
  
"Come, Eric. It's time to go."  
  
I follow. We leave Lucy behind and as we do another thought occurs to me. She at least will sleep alone tonight, protected behind the bars of her self-induced cage. She has escaped after all.  
  
Her refuge is far safer than my own.  
  
THE END 


End file.
